still awhile after closing the casket, and rehearsed mentally the
order of the obsequies. I had, thus far, made no arrangements for them
beyond instructing the colored children to meet me in the Old Orchard
under the big sweeting when the sun reached the "noonmark" my father
had, to please me, cut in the fence by the playhouse door. They would be
there in force and on time. I would get myself and burden out of the end
door of the north wing and steal around the yard fence to the back of
the garden without being seen. I knew how Mary 'Liza would smile and
hitch up her straight, clean nose at the box and its contents, and I had
a boding fear lest grown people might disapprove of and forbid the
funeral.

Upon that my heart was fully set. The grief of losing the ceremony would
be harder to endure than the delicious mournfulness with which I had
systematically imbued my soul. I chose four boys of uniform size for
pall-bearers; Barratier was to have a spade ready and to dig the grave,
and when it was filled in we would sing a hymn. Mourning garments were
the knotty point. I, as Musidora's mother, could not appear at her
funeral in the crimson circassian frock I wore at present. That would
upset everything.

A happy thought struck me. I recollected to have seen in the
lumber-room, hanging upon some pegs high upon the wall, a row of old
bonnets, and a black one among them. Other black things could be had for
the hunting. I was a fanciful child, too used to conjuring up weird
situations and make-believe happenings to be easily scared by what other
children might dread. Nor was I then, or ever, a physical coward. As
soon as the idea of visiting that upper room came to me I acted upon it.
Tripping up the narrow stairs, I pushed hard against the door. It stuck
in the frame, and I was fearing it might be locked when it gave way
suddenly and I almost fell into the chamber. It was a dreary place,
although the spring sunshine poured broadly from wall to wall. The
charred brands of the fire that had wrought such woe were cold in the
corners of the hearth, having toppled, head-foremost and backward, over
the andirons after burning through in the middle. The old blankets and
comfortables were huddled upon the mattress and trailed upon the floor,
as my mother had left them in snatching one to throw about Lucy. A ball
with which Alexander the Great had played was in a corner. But for the
dead fire and the living sunshine and the stillness